Since the first promotional photo for the Sherlock special was released last November, fans have rightly wondered what Holmes and Watson are doing dressed in period garb:

The BBC series is set in contemporary London, so exactly how and why have our heroes ended up in a different time — after all this isn’t Doctor Who (*insert your own dun dun DUN* here). Or is it?

Yesterday, that wanker Steven Moffat confirmed that Sherlock and John are indeed out of their own time, though he didn’t say just how that’s happened (no, it’s not a dream):

“The special is its own thing. We wouldn’t have done the story we’re doing, and the way we’re doing it, if we didn’t have this special. It’s not part of the run of three episodes. So we had this to do it - as we could hardly conceal - it’s Victorian. [Co-creator Mark Gatiss] and me, we wanted to do this, but it had to be a special, it had to be separate entity on its own. It’s kind of in its own little bubble.”

If the standalone episode isn’t a dream or a trick (masquerade), there are only so many ways Watson and Holmes could go back in time. Could this mean our long-gestating dreams are finally coming true? Sure, Moffat’s denied (using faulty logic) a Sherlock/Doctor Who crossover is possible, but perhaps he was just laying the cover-up groundwork? And can you imagine the fan reaction? Why, I’ll bet Moff might actually find himself in our good graces again (for at most least a week. Even if it were only a two-minute cameo, the idea of Benedict and Martin meeting Capaldi practically has me dancing around the room. And before you say they could never keep such a thing a secret — of course they could! The TARDIS scenes would have to be shot indoors, but now that everyone thinks the Sherlock special is done filming, Freeman and Cumberbatch could easily slip to a set unnoticed.